Book Title: THE VERY BEST OF CARE
Character Name: Dr. Mitch Wagner
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Dysfunctional and self-centered. I grew up in New York City, son of a renowned orthopedic surgeon and professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. For as long as I can remember, my father was grooming me to be a physician, just like himself. I was close to becoming his vision of a perfect physician son, until I decided I was not going to specialize in orthopedics. Instead, I chose obstetrics and gynecology - apparently a blasphemous choice coming from a long lineage of orthopedic surgeons. From the day I announced my decision, I lost any hope for acceptance from my father. According to him, I had chosen “sissy” medicine, which he occasionally called “pussy” medicine when he was deep into his bottle of Scotch. But I wasn’t going to give up on him or us - I would show him that I was worthy, every bit as smart as he, and someday I would be equally respected in my specialty.
What was your greatest talent?
I’m brilliant. School was ridiculously easy for me. In 6th grade I’d memorized the chemistry periodic table by the end of the first day of school. Teachers were impressed. I had a mathematical brain that no one in my private high school could successfully challenge.
Significant other?
I’ve been married to the same woman for 19 years and unfortunately, she is no longer that significant to me. We have two sons together. Our marriage has grown stale, and money is the only thing holding us together, only because it’s too expensive for me to ask for a divorce, and too much of a risk of losing her comfortable lifestyle if my wife asked for a divorce. So here we are - each of us stagnated in a pond of lost love.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Humility and honesty. My ego gets in the way. My wife has told me that we need a new front door, one that will allow my ego to fit through. She’s right. But in my defense, to survive the cut-throat competition and backstabbing that it took to make my way to the top of my class and then to the top of my department, a big ego was necessary. I don’t think I’ve had an honest, unassuming conversation with any of my colleagues or peers in years. The one exception is my half-brother, Sheldon. With Sheldon I can let my card down, drop all pretenses and talk openly and honestly. And feel safe doing so.
Where do you live?
I have my family home in Westchester, 30 miles outside of Manhattan, on Long Island sound. I also have an apartment close to the hospital for the weeks that I need to be close by and readily available at the triage center. Those kinds of long, unpredictable hours make it nearly impossible, certainly impractical to commute daily.
Do you have any enemies?
Heck yeah. When you’ve made it to the top, there are always people left behind that hate you. Certainly Sophie Young, one of my patients, would most definitely consider me her enemy. That was never my intention, but it’s what has happened.
How do you feel about the place where you are now?
Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place? Right at this moment, I am in the center of my universe - the maternity triage unit of Metro Hospital. This is my favorite place on earth, my domain, the place where I shine my brightest. Some have called it my home away from home. There are times I’m so happy here I consider it my first home, and my home in Westchester my second home. But I try not to let my wife know that’s how I think.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
I have two sons, ages 18 and 15. I have no pets. Never mind the fact that my lifestyle is not conducive to owning a pet, I find dogs and cars to just be nuisances. The closest thing I ever had to a pet was a rat I kept in a cage in the medical school lab and used for experiments. I know, it sounds horrible. I’m just not an animal kind of guy.
What do you do for a living?
I am a doctor. More specifically I am the chief of high-risk obstetrics at Metro Hospital in New York City.
Greatest disappointment?
The day I disappointed my father by choosing ob-gyn as my medical specialty. His disapproval of me left me beyond disappointed in myself. I was afraid I’d lost my father’s love for good. Sometimes I think about how things might have turned out differently if I’d done what he wanted.
Greatest source of joy?
Challenging deliveries - like when a baby is stuck in the birth canal and its heart rate drops so agonizingly slow, everybody in the delivery room is holding their breath, then I deliver the baby and there are whoops and hollers of relief and joy. Or delivering a baby so prematurely, it’s barely through half its gestation and that baby lives. Or one of the best - delivery quintuplets. Of course I didn’t deliver them all myself, but I orchestrated the delivery, and all the people involved, and it went beautifully! These successes, when things could easily have gone south very fast, but didn’t - those are what bring me joy. New LIfe! How can that not be joyful?
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
I used to ski with my family. But now my sons and my wife are busy doing their own things. So I stay in the city, jeans and a t-shirt, NY pizza, and go to a movie. Two hours in a dark theater, alone, is my way to clear all the bad shit, challenges, negative events that have happened over the week.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
Greed. I sold out. I was such a star, a sought-after doctor with articles written about me in the New York Times and New York Magazine as one of the best doctors of the year. I pulled the hospital out of financial ruin with obstetric genius. Life was rolling along beautifully. Then something happened. Or maybe the change came gradually. I sold out, forsaking the one thing that gave my life meaning - my work.
What keeps you awake at night?
Worrying about my family, my reputation, my bank account if I go to jail.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Staying out of jail
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Indeed, to be forgiven. I need my half-brother to understand and forgive me. I need my colleagues to forgive me. But most of all, I need my father’s approval.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
What got in the way was, in my attempt to show him how successful I could be, I went too far and ended up on the dark side. I betrayed other people, including my patients. Now I am further away from gaining his acceptance than ever.
A Novel
For fans of medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy and thriller authors like Robin Cook, a debut novel about one woman’s attempt to fight back against the dark underbelly of medical malpractice in the NICU in order to save her premature babies’ life.
New York, 2012. A young mother stumbles on a disturbing secret: the health system is so broken that the lives of newborns and the unborn are no longer safe.
Three and a half months before her due date, Sophie Young is forced to deliver her tiny two-pound son—a baby boy barely old enough to survive. Caught in the labyrinth of hospital secrecy, Sophie meets the dark side of modern medicine: corruption, exploitation, and profiteering. When she discovers that a prominent physician has joined forces with Big Pharma to exploit pregnant women and their babies, she races to bring the guilty to justice and save her son before it’s too late.
In the end, Sophie has one message for her enemy: It’s a law of nature—never come between a mother and her child.
Thriller Medical [Spark Press, On Sale: June 3, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781684633142 / eISBN: 9781684633159]
Julie Hatch is a master’s prepared pediatric nurse practitioner with a passion for kids’ health and welfare. She spent over thirty years working in pediatric and neonatal intensive care. Ten years ago, she left Western medicine to earn a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and open her own acupuncture practice. At the same time, she began writing medical fiction, drawing on her experiences from the front lines of intensive care. This is her debut novel. Julie lives with her husband on the south coast of Massachusetts.
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